


Graduation

by Jake_the_space_cat



Series: A Creature of Pride (transmasc!Kim AU) [3]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, FTM, Gen, Pre-Canon, Trans Character, Trans Kim Kitsuragi, Trans Male Character, Transmasc, trans!Kim Kitsuragi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29328624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jake_the_space_cat/pseuds/Jake_the_space_cat
Summary: He has to get out of juvie eventually. Right?And what does it mean if he can't?Transmasc!Kim AU. I've tweaked the timeline in a few ways, including having Kim join as a junior officer very young, in his teens, because AU, baby, and I do what I want to get my themes to work.
Series: A Creature of Pride (transmasc!Kim AU) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160411
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Graduation

There were only two reasons he could be as old as he was and still working juvie, and Kim Kitsuragi knew both.

Reason number one: He looked Seolite.

Since his late 20s, he’d gone above and beyond to make his record speak for itself. He closed cases quickly and efficiently; he kept impeccable records. He was always prompt, always professional, always level-headed. He kept out of precinct politics; he led a deliberately unremarkable life outside of work. He had done everything he could to make it impossible to question his value as an officer.

Racism was part of his life, but he didn’t think it was why he was still working with teenagers.

Which left reason number two: He looked *young.*

He had *been* young in the RCM. Being a junior officer - and then full officer - of the RCM had meant having authority behind him as he fought to make his life his own. It had meant the chance to posture and perform and challenge others under the protective wing of an organization that covered for its own, often bluntly and brutally. A chance to work the need to prove himself out of his system and let others worry about making sure he survived the process.

But he *wasn’t* young any longer. He was 38, closing in on his 40s. He’d moved past the combination of hormones, angst, and anger that made some teens (and, okay, 20-somethings, if he felt like looking back at those difficult years) a danger to themselves.

Which meant that the only reason he was still in juvie was because the *most* valuable thing he could offer the RCM wasn’t his dedication to the work or his exemplary service record and experience.

It was the fact that he still *looked like a kid.*

Kim Kitsuragi, “Kimball,” the angry little office mascot, the punk kid with a chip on his shoulder, all grown up into a respectable officer of the RCM but professionally trapped in amber because of his face, his build, his *body.*

He was 38. Two more years, and if he didn’t finally get that promotion, he’d tell himself that racism *was* why he could never move up, and he would leave. 

Because that would have to be the reason, wouldn’t it? Because no one could look at a 40-year-old man and still see a boy - see a child.

Could they?

\------

He was still 38. The promotion had come through. Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, homicide detective.

Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, finally, *finally,* a fucking adult.

He went home that night and let himself cry.

**Author's Note:**

> You can read this piece interpreting Kim as cis or as trans, but I wrote it with transmasc perspective hat intentionally on and hope that comes through.


End file.
